Bhagavad-Gita The Divine Song: Krishna’s Counsel at War Manish Paliwal Department of Mechanical Engineering The College of New Jersey Close Reading Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 1 / 35
1. Bhagavad-Gita The Divine Song: Krishnas Counsel at War
Manish Paliwal Department of Mechanical Engineering The College of
New Jersey Close Reading Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 1 / 35
2. The Divine Song Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 2 / 35
3. Bhagavad-Gita What is it? Part of the scriptural trinity of
Sanatana Dharma (loosely translated as Eternal Religion), commonly
known as Hinduism. Deals with metaphysical science Answers two
fundamental questions: Who am I? How can I lead a happy and
peaceful life in this world of dualities? Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 3 /
35
4. The Plot Timeline and Prime Characters A king had two sons,
Dhritarashtra and Pandu. Dhritarashtra was born blind, therefore,
Pandu inherited the kingdom. Paadu had ve sons (Paandavas).
Dhritarashtra had one hundred sons (Kauravas). Duryodhana was the
eldest of the Kauravas. Pandu died and the Paandavas were young at
the time. Duryodhana (the eldest Kaurava) wanted the entire kingdom
for himself. He unlawfully took possession of the entire kingdom of
the Paandavas and refused to give back even an acre of land without
a war. All mediation failed. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 4 / 35
5. Arjunas dilemma The big war of Mahabharata was thus
inevitable! Choice 1: Fight and kill his revered teachers, friends,
relatives, and many innocent warriors Choice 2: Run away from the
battleeld in the name of peace and nonviolence. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita
5 / 35
6. Krishna To dispel Arjuns dilemma, the Bhagavad Gita was
spoken about 5000 years ago in the midst of the battleeld. Paliwal
(TCNJ) Gita 6 / 35
7. The Gita begins Double frame narration: Narrated to the
blind king, father of Kauravas, by his charioteer, Sanjaya, as an
eyewitness war report. Sanjaya, tell me what my sons and the sons
of Pandu did when they met, wanting to battle on the eld of Kuru,
on the eld of sacred duty? 1.1 Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 7 / 35
8. Arjuna inspects the battleeld Dejected, lled with strange
pity, he said this: Oh Krishna, I see my kinsmen gathered here,
wanting war. My limbs sink, my mouth is parched, my body trembles,
the hair bristles on my esh. The magic bow slips from my hand, my
skin burns, I cannot stand still, my mind reels. (1.28-30) Paliwal
(TCNJ) Gita 8 / 35
9. J. Robert Oppenheimer American physicist and director of the
Manhattan Project, learned Sanskrit in 1933 and read the Bhagavad
Gita in the original, citing it later as one of the most inuential
books to shape his philosophy of life. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 9 /
35
10. J. Robert Oppenheimer: I have become Death, destroyer of
the world Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 10 / 35
11. I shall NOT ght! 1.47 Saying this in the time of war,
Arjuna slumped into the chariot and laid down his bow and arrows,
his mind tormented by grief. 2.9 Arjuna told this to Krishna- then
saying, I shall not ght, he fell silent. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 11 /
35
12. Why wouldnt wise lament for the living or for the dead?
2.11 While speaking learned words, you are mourning for what is not
worthy of grief. Those who are wise lament neither for the living
nor for the dead. 2.13 Just as the embodied Self enters childhood,
youth, and old age, so does it enters another body. This does not
confound a steadfast man. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 12 / 35
13. 2.22 As a man discards worn-out clothes to put on new and
dierent ones, so the embodied self discards its worn-out bodies to
take on the other new ones. 2.28 Creatures are unmanifest in
origin, manifest in the midst of life, and unmanifest again in the
end. Since this is so, why do you lament? Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 13 /
35
14. Krishna reminds Arjuna his duty as a warrior. 2.38 Do thou
ght for the sake of ghting, without considering happiness or
distress, loss or gain, victory or defeat and by so doing you shall
never incur sin. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 14 / 35
15. What is Karma Yoga? Do not crave for the fruits of your
actions; Detachment towards actions and its fruits. 2.47 You have a
right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to
the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the
results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your
duty. 2.48 Perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna, abandoning all
attachment to success or failure. Such equanimity is called yoga.
Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 15 / 35
16. 2.50 A man engaged in karma-yoga rids himself of both good
and bad actions even in this life. Therefore strive for yoga, which
is the art of all work. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 16 / 35
17. What are the signs of a self-realized person? 2.56 One who
is not disturbed in mind even amidst the miseries or elated when
there is happiness, and who is free from attachment, fear and
anger, is called a sage of steady mind. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 17 /
35
18. What are the dangers of unrestrained senses? 2.62 Brooding
about sensuous objects makes attachment to them grow; from
attachment desire arises, from desire anger is born 2.63 From anger
comes confusion; from confusion memory lapses; from broken memory
understanding is lost; from loss of understanding, he is ruined
Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 18 / 35
19. How to attain peace and happiness through sense control and
knowledge? 2.67 As a strong wind sweeps away a boat on the water,
even one of the roaming senses on which the mind focuses can carry
away a mans intelligence. 2.70 A person who is not disturbed by the
incessant ow of desires that enter like rivers into the ocean,
which is ever being lled but is always still can alone achieve
peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires. Paliwal
(TCNJ) Gita 19 / 35
20. Why should one selessly serve others? 3.7 When he controls
his senses with his mind and engages in karma-yoga (disciplined
seless action without attachment), he is by far superior. 3.9
Actions imprisons the world unless it is done as sacrice freed from
attachment, Arjuna, perform action as sacrice. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita
20 / 35
21. 3.16 One who fails to keep the wheel of creation in motion
by performing seless service to others Living only for the
satisfaction of the senses such a person lives in vain. Paliwal
(TCNJ) Gita 21 / 35
22. Would you take credit for your work? 3.27 Actions are all
eected by the qualities of nature but deluded by individuality the
self thinks, I am the doer. 3.30 Surrender all your actions to God,
with full knowledge of the Self without desires for prot, and
possessiveness, and free from mental grief, ght your battle.
Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 22 / 35
23. What are the two stumbling blocks in the path of
perfection? 3.34 Attraction and hatred are poised in the object of
every sense experience; a man must not fall prey to these two
brigands lurking into his path! Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 23 / 35
24. What makes a person commit evil? 3.37 It is lust only,
Arjuna, arising from the natures mode of passion and later
transformed into anger, know it here as enemy, voracious and very
evil. 3.38 As re is obscured by smoke and a mirror by dirt, as the
embryo is veiled by its caul, so is knowledge covered by lust.
Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 24 / 35
25. 3.39 Knowledge is obscured by the wise mans eternal enemy
which takes form of desire or lust an insatiable re, Arjuna! 3.40
The senses, the mind, and intellect are said to be the abode of
lust; with these it deludes a person by veiling the Self-knowledge.
Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 25 / 35
26. How to control lust? Puried intellect steadies the mind
which controls the actions. 3.43 Knowing the Self beyond senses,
mind, and intelligence steady the mind by puried spiritual
intellect and thus, by spiritual strength, - O Arjuna. conquer this
insatiable enemy known as lust. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 26 / 35
27. Summary Yoga of Action Discharge your duties without the
thought of fruit as a seless service. Perform your duty with
equanimity towards failure and success. Yoga of Knowledge Every
being is forced to act by the qualities of nature. You are not the
doer. Lust, greed, and anger are the enemies as they ruin the
judgment. Conquer them! Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 27 / 35
28. Key concepts Yoga: How to achieve union (yoga) with the
Supreme Being? Karma Yoga or the Path of Action Jnana Yoga or the
Path of Knowledge Raja Yoga or the Path of Meditation Bhakti Yoga
or the Path of Devotion Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 28 / 35
29. Bhagavad-Gita Five thousand years have passed ... ... and
it has inuenced millions and millions. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 29 /
35
30. Aldous Huxley the most systematic statement of spiritual
evolution. its enduring value is to all of humanity. Paliwal (TCNJ)
Gita 30 / 35
31. A. Einstein When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reect about
how God created this universe everything else seems so superuous.
Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 31 / 35
32. Henry David Thoreau In the morning I bathe my intellect in
the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita in
comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny
and trivial. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 32 / 35
33. Hermann Hesse the marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly
beautiful revelation of lifes wisdom Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 33 /
35
34. Ralph Waldo Emerson I owed a magnicent day to the
Bhagavad-Gita. It was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or
unworthy, but large, serene, consistent,the voice of an old
intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus
disposed of the same questions which exercise us. Paliwal (TCNJ)
Gita 34 / 35
35. Mahatma Gandhi When doubts haunt me, when disappointments
stare me in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon,
I turn to Bhagavad-Gita and nd a verse to comfort me; and I
immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow.
Those who meditate on the Gita will derive fresh joy and new
meanings from it every day. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 35 / 35